


Shared Trauma

by Wizardchester91



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Abusive Neil Hargrove, Billy Hargrove Being an Asshole, Billy Hargrove Redemption, Bisexual Billy Hargrove, Dysfunctional Family, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Other, Possessive Billy Hargrove, Protective Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington is a Sweetheart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-27 22:00:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19798630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wizardchester91/pseuds/Wizardchester91
Summary: Billy and Max at first glance hate each other. But Shared Trauma has a way of hiding things.





	Shared Trauma

It had become familiar for them.

Max was terrified of her brother, of course.

No. That was wrong. She was terrified of his temper. Of his violence, his rage that left her sobbing and holding some broken thing- once he had smashed the stero she got for her birthday because her Madonna album had played too loud. He bought her a new one after working all summer, with an ace bandage wrapped around his wrist.

When Max looked in Billy's eyes in those moments, it was like looking into the eyes of a monster. Like her stepfather.

Billy had strange ways of showing he cared. He would threaten her, of course, and he made her feel trapped and alone in the car with him sometimes, but other times...

When she was bullied in 5th grade for her freckles, Billy was furious. The kid "fell" from his treehouse and broke his arm the next day.

When Billy stumbled into her room, drunk and covered in bruises, she had first yelled at him "Can't you Knock, shithead?" And then seen the pain in his eyes, patching him up while he drunkenly mumbled how he could never do anything right, and maybe Neil was right, he was a useless piece of shit. She didn't tell him what he said when he woke up and asked the next morning.

They acted like they hated each other. "I love you, be safe." Was not in their vocabulary. Instead it was flicking him off as he drove away, it was "Hey, Shitbird." It was "Fuck off, shit for brains." It was "Don't be late or I'll make you walk home", yet she never walked home, and he was always waiting for her, nomatter how pissed he was.

They had a shared comeraderie. Billy was a shitty teacher, but he didn't want her to go through what he did. So he lectured her about the RIGHT and WRONG kind of people, he yanked her out of the street the screamed at her to not be a fucking dumbass, and do you wanna become road burger?, when she was learning to skateboard. When he found the bloody pair of underwear at the bottom of the bathroom trash, and knew that his Shithead parents wouldn't do anything about it, a 20$ bill and a note "buy whatever shit you need, just don't let me find your nasty shit laying around anymore," Appeared on her bed. Max took the trash out for a month.

They loved each other, maybe not in a healthy way, maybe not in a normal way, but there was love.

Neil didn't even go to Billy's Funeral. Their mom did, and Steve, who held her as she sobbed and screamed and hyperventilated, and El and her friends. When it was over, and she was alone, she sat down in the fresh dirt, hugging her knees to her chest.

"Billy..." She choked. She was the only one who cared. The only one who missed him. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all those times I was mean to you. I'm sorry I told dad about..." She wouldn't say it out loud. Not again. She swore after the beating that had gotten social services called, she would never talk about that night, about what she caught her brother doing, again.

"I miss you. I know you loved me too because...because all those times you could have killed me and you didn't. All those times you could have ratted me out and you didn't." 

The new sherriff got called to the school a month later after Max appeared at school with a black eye and a busted lip. Neil was arrested, Susan started going to therapy and filed for divorce. When the whole gang (some over radios) panicked over Max being sent away to _Foster Care,_ Steve Harrington surprised everyone by filing for guardianship.

"Why not? I'm constantly looking out for you brats anyway."


End file.
